Plug & Pride
A 2-in-1 Special
Let me begin with a plug.
A few weeks ago I read a news article about archaeological excavations in Clive House, near Kolkata, discovering 2000-year-old artefacts and evidence of human settlements. Reading about early human civilizations is an area of particular interest to me, but this news article hit home. Quite literally.
Clive House is one of the paras (locality) in the neighbourhood of my home in Dum Dum and one of my oldest-and-closest friends1 used to live there. Well, he didn’t live in Clive House obviously; the place was a ramshackle, decrepit ruin rumoured to be haunted by spirits and “anti-socials”2, which now that I think about it would have been an ideal abode for him. No, I meant he lived in the vicinity and consequently, I spent a large part of my childhood hanging out around Clive House.
So, I was naturally intrigued and started reading about this excavation. One thing led to another, and I ended up writing about it - and some related things. The good folks at The Wire published the piece earlier this week. In case you missed my WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook updates about it, you can read the piece here.
Okay, with that done, let’s move on.
Pride Month is drawing to a close so it seems apposite to talk about a gem of a show I recently watched on Netflix: Heartstopper3.
It is your standard, saccharine-sweet, high-school romance, except it is not about a cisgendered heterosexual (cishet) couple. Heartstopper, as the trailer reveals, is a boy-meet-boy story. The protagonist, Nick, is a Year 10 student in Truham Grammar School for Boys in an indeterminate town in the UK, who has a crush on his Year 11 desk-mate, Charlie. Charlie is the rugby team hero and, let’s just call a spade a spade, he is an absolute cutie. Over 8 episodes, the show navigates how Nick grapples with his (love)life as an openly gay schoolboy, as Charlie embarks on his own journey of discovering his sexual identity.
Heartstopper is based on a graphic novel, which started off as a webcomic, by Alice Oseman. It’s journey from being sketches on the internet to a live-action adaptation on the internet, is as delightful as the show itself. It is Chicken Soup for the Soul. It is steaming hot khichudi when you’re feeling unwell. It is the first mug of coffee on a rainy morning. It is, in short, utterly lovely.
Watching Heartstopper, I was reminded of the hugely popular, multiple Emmy awards-winning show which also featured non-heteronormative romance: Schitt’s Creek. The show has been acclaimed, particularly by the LGBTQ+ community, for the manner in which it depicted David and Patrick’s relationship. For instance, the scene where Davis is serenaded by his ‘butter-voiced beau’, Patrick, is certain to make all kinds of insects fly into your eyes.
Soul-stirring acoustic covers aside, to me, a noteworthy feature of Schitt’s Creek was the easy acceptance of David’s pansexuality by not just his parents but the entire town. Nobody questioned his sexual choices or even seemed surprised by them. To the people of Schitt’s Creek, David’s pansexuality was, dare we say it, normal4.
An idyllic world undoubtedly, but still, a world that we can aspire to build. Heartstopper has that same warmth, that same goodness, at its core. Sure, it has a few, rather dull and dunderheaded, teenage bullies who make snide remarks about the gay characters. But the people who matter, the friends and family, are fiercely supportive of Nick and Charlie’s sexuality.
I am sure the real world is not always as rosy and I cannot presume to comment on the struggles that many LGBTQ+ people face in their lives. Art has often depicted such struggles, and played a crucial role in bringing it to the attention of a wider audience and triggering necessary public discourse around queer rights. But sometimes, art should also be allowed to sidestep reality and envision a world which is fairy-tale perfect, and where everything is designed to put a smile on your face. In fact, art has very often been a means of escape from dreary reality; a means to imagine a world where a nondescript bookshop owner can marry a Hollywood actress. There have been countless Notting Hills made over the years; it was about time someone made a Heartstopper.
Once you’ve left middle school, the term ‘best friend’ doesn’t quite roll off the tongue as easily, does it? It’s a relic from an innocent childhood that is abandoned when one hits puberty. I wonder why. Perhaps as we grow older, our complexities, agonies and gripes also grow with us and can no longer be unburdened on a solitary person. The singular ‘best friend’ of childhood thus, over time, becomes a collective of ‘close friends’, where each is uniquely necessary to help us cope with life.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, parents used the term “anti-social” much like how the government uses the term “anti-national” now. It could be applied to anybody who could influence the gullible to deviate from the straight and narrow.
Hat-tip to my friend, Licks, who recommended I watch it and who is generally known to recommend the most ghastly shows. This exception proves the rule, you could say.
David’s personality, of course, was anything but.
I loved your piece in The Wire and your praise for Heartstopper. It is also so much fun to read writerly "one thing led to another" (a phrase ususallly used for romantic/erotic experiences) stories. Somehow gives us the permission to unexpectedly arrive at pieces of writing through our curiosities.